Lebanese Hezbollah militant group has ordered its former ally the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas out of Lebanon effective immediately and within hours , the Middle East Online news agency reported on Thursday.
The move, the report says, is due to Hamas support for the opposition forces fighting to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. Both Hezbollah and Syria are allies of Iran, which provides the two with financial and military support.
Hamas representative in Lebanon Ali Baraka denied the report to Lebanese paper Aliwaa, saying Hezbollah officials in Lebanon were surprised by the report.
But media sources close to the Palestinian national liberation movement Fatah in Lebanon said a Hezbollah senior security official informed Baraka, that all of those related to Hamas on the Lebanese territory have become unwelcome.
Times of London reported last month that Hamas’ military unit has broken ties with Assad, and has begun training members of the opposition’s Free Syrian Army in Damascus.
Meanwhile, from MEMRI:
In other related news:
Gulf Arab states will consider placing Hizbullah, which is openly involved in the Syrian conflict, on its terror list, al-Rai daily quoted highly placed diplomats on Thursday as saying.
Bahrain will ask foreign ministers of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council to discuss "placing Hizbullah on the terror list" at a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Sunday, the newspaper said.
Bahrain currently holds the GCC's rotating presidency.
The paper did not say whether this referred to the party as a whole or just its military wing, whose men are fighting alongside government troops in a fierce battle to retake the Syrian town of Qusayr from rebels.